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Hugo was a fair skinned teenager with short dark hair. He bore a large scar on his left wrist after having his hand transplanted with his older brother's. He typically wore a light coloured wrap around his head with a light couloured jacket, cape and pants. When posing as lubricator to lure his cyborg victims he wore a cap with a havelock, tinted goggles, and a face mask. After becoming a cyborg Hugo's body was a civilian model. He used Daisuke Ido's trademark hat and trench coat to mask his appearance until he could confront Vector.

Hugo was born in ES 562.[1] He was raised by his much older brother and his wife Nana. His brother, who worked as an engineer for the Factory, developed a burning curiosity to get to Tiphares, which he one day decided to pursue.

He ran away from home after Nana betrayed his brother to the hunter-warrior Clive Lee for building an illegal airship to attempt to fly to Tiphares. Since then he had inherited a burning desire to go to the floating city himself. He first encountered Vector three years before the start of the main story, when he recognized his brother's hand being sold by one of the latter's dealers, and impressed Vector by voluntarily trading his hand for his brother's. Believing that Vector could access Tiphares because of his pull in the Scrapyard, he fell for Vector's offer to get him there if he could bring him 10 million chips. Hugo ostensibly performs odd maintenance jobs for Scrapyard residents such as Ido, but has taken to illegally supplementing his income by posing along with his accomplices Tanji and Van, as a lubrication crew for cyborgs. They then paralyze their victims and steal their spinal columns, as these fetch the highest prices on the black market for body parts.

Alita meets Hugo during her hunt for Megil, and is impressed by his willingness to protect her even though he is grossly outmatched. The two then strike up a friendship which Alita makes clear she would like to take further, and she embarks on a bounty-hunting spree to help Hugo reach his 10 million chip mark. However Hugo is blinded by his obsession with Tiphares and does not realize that Alita is romantically interested in him. After his run in with Zapan, Hugo becomes a marked bounty. Despite learning the truth about him, Alita is still willing to go with him to Tiphares. He is nearly killed by Clive Lee, and is only saved by Alita linking her life support to his brain. Transplanted into a cyborg body by Ido, Hugo learns the reality that a surface dweller such as himself has no hope of reaching Tiphares. After confronting Vector with this, who also confirms it, he attempts to climb one of the Factory tubes that connects Tiphares to the Scrapyard. He makes it up further than any previous person, but is crippled by a massive spiked ring dropped down the tube. Alita is able to reach him just before a second one is dropped, but cannot save him, as his torso is shredded. Hugo is able to share his last words with Alita before falling to his death. This subsequently leads Alita to quit being a hunter-warrior and turn to motorball.